she's only teleported a few times and those times were to get used to the sensation if she ever needed to. it hadn't quite been her cup of tea. she doesn't understand why some prefer it, but then again, many people would balk at the way she rides dragons.

when caleb joins her, she looks sideways at him, lips a thin line. it's not that she never intended to follow up with him. his words hadn't been wasted on her in the battlefield, but there are only so many things she can juggle at one time without wearing herself so thin she collapses.

she teeters closer to that with each passing day.

"cal can carry the both of us," she says as the charizard drops down to all fours, back bared. "if you want to save your zoroark's strength."

a slight frown. "and talk."

Caleb Harcourt
4TbMPisQ

☉

"probably a good idea," she says with a grimace. if cal has any qualms about getting whatever that gunk is on his back, he tries his best not to show it as caleb mounts him. though at his mistress' tongue, he turns his neck and eyes the ranger. he rumbles a response in return and as soon as freya climbs between his shoulders, he pitches forward. 

"i remember," she says. 

calcifer ducks around protruding crystals. she splits her attention between caleb and helping him navigate from any wayward sounds that echo around them. she's yet to train with caleb on dragonback and now doesn't exactly seem like the time.

in truth, she's let caleb's worries fall to the wayside. too many other things demand her attention. worrying over Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki's new powers. working with ollie morales on amnesty, Melody Miro on home. laying the foundation to bring KING WAYLAND into the league fold. 

breaking Eva Morales's heart again and again and again.

she grimaces.

"okay." what's one more burden? "tell me everything."

Caleb Harcourt

☉

when she said everything, she had no idea he'd start at the beginning. at childhood. she has a sinking feeling in her gut. the opposite of an over-sharer herself, she can only imagine something of severe magnitude could make him talk in earnest like this. 

in her jacket, she begins to sweat. beads of it run down her temples. while they fly, she shrugs her jacket down her shoulders, careful not to jostle caleb too much, or unclasp his hands from around her waist. 

his experiences are hauntingly similar to her own past, but emma was different. she'd hated what she became. she'd trusted freya to save her. 

she will not make the same mistake with king.

calcifer's wings flare, catching a thermal draft, and caleb's words are soft against the backdrop of the cavern. golden eyes close. cal lands heavily on an outcropping of crystal and though he moves to have them dismount, she stays rigid. small.

"i don't feel things for people," she says. "or, i guess that's not quite right. it takes a lot for me to feel things for people. i can count on one hand those i've ever truly cared about." her hand falls from his face, knuckles resting against his pillow. she shifts. a thin braid tumbles down her shoulder.

"it's never felt wrong before. it just is." she blows out a soft sigh. "it's important, i think, that you know this. that you know i never recoil because of you."

she has loved with a fierceness she thought herself incapable. she has loved with her whole self. she has loved until it burned, and she has continued to love still. 

and still she is reminded that she does not have enough to give. 

"itov ui loerchik," she says quietly and slips down to the ground. 

Caleb Harcourt

☉

her lips quirk, despite herself. few others have taken to the language like she had. but were there others? she thinks before the thoughts wisps away, hearing dulcet tones of familiar voices she swears have never spoken to her in that tongue before. 

she was as much a teacher as she was a student in her alternate life, she realizes. by growing alongside the likes of fernando and alex and eva, they learned from her, and now she's left feeling robbed of another connection. 
 
yet warmed all the same when she says, "you're picking it up quickly."

calcifer tucks in his wings and drops to all fours so he can lap generously from the pool of water at the base of the falls. fish pokemon dart away from him in erratic spurts. birds fly lowly, lazily overhead, as though they had lived here for eons. 

"you said something, during the battle," she says, wracking her brain. adrenaline has a way of mucking up memories. "before the blast. after the blast?" she sucks in a breath. "was that him?"

Caleb Harcourt

☉

there are so many nightmares that haunt her. shadows on the edges of her bleary vision at 3 am stints in the office. it's not instantly that she pieces it together, not in the wake of her recent past, mixed with the grisly sanguine portrait of a decade unmade and an other-self shell. 

but the body knows. the body reminds her of the horror when she'd found thalia, shard of teeth embedded in her tongue and the roof of her mouth, belly split like a gutted fish. the white foam stained crimson.

and then to Gwendolyn Conway, tear-streaked face and shaking like a leaf in her lap while blood poured down her dragon's front. 

his hands were like blades.

his entire body was just crystal.

not like shining crystals you see in caves, but dark ones.

so it's not a monster after all. Zev Harcourt, another puppet for the gods.

there's the shink of her sword being drawn. she stands over the pool and calcifer turns his head, looking up at her. she stares at the reflection of herself in the blade, eyes raking critically over the bruises under her eyes, the scars on her skin. 

"then we work off the assumption rocket has another avatar." her wrist turns, caleb's face replacing her own. she watches him this way.

"and we deal with him accordingly."

Caleb Harcourt

☉

white sclera shows around robin's blue eyes, erratic as the panicked question he asks her. she turns the blade and this time the tera crystals glitter down at her. with a sigh, she shoves it back into its dagger and crouches by the water. sharp nails trail over the water. the silver of her sygna suit gleams.

"katherine could pull the distortion world into our reality," she says.

"kyle can resurrect people from the dead."

"tapu fini could - " 

she snaps her hand back as though it scalds her. revulsion knifes through her and with a blink, she does not see the tera crystal pool before her, but a steamy bath. a hand outstretched. 

"legendaries give people the power to do terrible, terrible things. he wouldn't be the first."

Caleb Harcourt

☉